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Okay, I feel like sinking my claws into something substantial, who wants feedback?

WickedEve, thought you left, but you came back!

It's a really good story. The writing is very smooth despite the choppy structure, not easy to pull off.

The problems I saw were few, but a little daunting to read. The sentence structure was difficult to wade through. It was choppy, full of short sentences and the fragment or two tossed in for good measure. You think in poetry when you're writing, I'd say. I don't know if fixing that would make the story better, just easier to read. I'm thinking about impact. Have you considered making this one into more of a poem and less of a traditional story? On the other hand, poetry loses the intensity of a really good character study. You've got the makings of a fabulous character study, she's exceptionally interesting.

That leads to the other problem, which was the lack of character development in her. She's well developed as it is, but she's still missing the pieces that make her whole. Like why did she out the guy to his wife? I found myself thinking of Mississippi Squirrel Revival in that scene rather than about the character. I would have done it out of pure meanness, but she's not me and I have no idea what made her do it. Why did she only stop with that one other person confession? Why did she just move onto herself instead? That Larry thing was a speed bump in the story. I didn't get why it was there because I didn't know why she did it. And there was nothing else there to make it even, he was the only person she hurt, she didn't hurt anyone else.

The way I see it, all of your sex was secondary to the character herself. The sex got in the way of the character at times because it took precedence to the character's thoughts and motivations.

The only other problem was the tag words. I could go on and on, but let's just be succinct. The only time you should ever use a speech tag-- said and synonyms-- is when there is no better way to clarify the speaker. If you know who is speaking already, don't use "said." I agree mostly with Strunk who says to never use anything but said. Forget muttered, whispered, yelled, errata and don't use adverbs. It's a good rule because it keeps you from skating by on muttered, whispered, yelled, errata.

I'd say that if you can get me more in touch with the character herself, then you'd cross the line into what I'd consider literature.
 
Thanks, KM.

There's some valuable info here for me to work with. I need to stop being so lazy with my stories. I lose interest in them after a while, and so I tend to write a lot of short ones that need more development. I think that's why I like poetry. It's instant gratification. I can write a dozen of those little suckers in one evening. lol

I didn't know you should use tag words sparingly. I had a feeling about it, though.

I think I may wade through the hundreds of stories on my hard drive and find one to edit with this new info you've given me. Most of the time I write stories where the character is more developed. I like to write about her thoughts and feelings. I think I dropped the ball on this story.

Thanks again

Wicked Eve

PS... the thing with Larry -- he was just one of her confessions. She simply enjoyed telling on him. lol I should have made that clearer.
 
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Lemme have it

I posted a request for feedback separately from this string, but this one seems so well followed, I thought I'd jump in here as well. I have written several things, but only one is submitted thus far. I'd like some feedback so I can better edit any remaining stories for submission... and/or as input before writing the next chapter of this story. (unless, of course, someone wants to volunteer the next chapter. *L*)

Seriously, thanks in advance for the help!

Pierre

Happy Birthday Cher
 
christophe, since I'm not going to catch up anyway

Here's a short lil' walk through. I'm going to skip mechanics entirely, unless you've got something clearly outstanding that needs to be addressed.

The first paragraph was somewhat interesting. The second paragraph would have sent me elsewhere if I were looking for a story to read.

You've got a bit of a problem with description. It's painful, I know. I hate it myself. You've got this cherry situation where you can milk it for all it's worth. A big mansion with something scary in it. You can describe it in a few ways, one of which is how you did it, statically. Another way is through something called personafication. That's where you give inanimate objects a personality.

Let's take this paragraph here and you can see why your description is wonderful and and not so good all at the same time.

I entered this house with a certain feeling of panic, as if I should have not come here. The inside was very ornate. Victorian elegance at its finest. The home was decorated lavishly with large paintings decorating the walls…people long gone from a different era. A large winding staircase was off to the center of the room going to a platform then turning both left and right. There was a scent that filled the air; it smelled like honeysuckle, although none was to be seen. I stood taking in the grandeur of this house where time had stood still.

You've got a good piece here, it brings the house out to the reader to give them a sense of what things look like. I can visualize this house and probably get something rather close in layout to what you visualized.

The problem is that I got nothing from it. I could tell you how to get upstairs, but I couldn't tell you how exceptional this place was. He felt panic, like he shouldn't be there. Of course there's no explanation as to why. No description of a house that's chilling or anxiety producing. This house has no character, no aura of being anything but background noise.

You've got a really prime situation for foreshadowing here, as well and other than the blatant panic clue, you didn't take advantage of it. The character felt nervous, this reader was picking out words to use in a poem. See the problem with static description?

There comes a time in everyone's work where you have to describe a something. You can't get around it. That is one of the most difficult parts of a story to write well because it's inherently boring.

And onto the language. I'm not terribly sure what you were after with your phraseology, but I was uncomfortable with it. It was extremely stiff. Were you aiming for something that felt formal? If so the method of execution was a problem. You essentially had a lengthy laundry list of I did this, I did that sporadically broken up with description. In informal voices this isn't a problem and most people will never even notice unless you keep using "and then." In more formal tones it comes out because the verbs are slightly off kilter to what we hear everyday and they stand out. Anyway, the character was "I" and he didn't sound like anyone I've ever met in my life. People don't write like naturally, I don't think.

The other thing is her name. It's very vampire. I wouldn't have thought twice about it until I read it inscribed on a headstone. She wasn't born that way and "blood red" did not make a lick of sense as a "real human's" last name.

The plot was pretty interesting, if a bit confusing. After chapter 1 I got a bit lost in what was going on. Was she dead or what?
 
dv8tor, you're up

I'm getting so behind here. *sighs*

Anyway.

Nice use of the language. I liked the flow of the words. They were really easy to sink into and I didn't come across any speed bumps that jarred my concentration.

There were a few problems though. Whispersecret is fond of telling me that if it doesn't further the plot, it doesn't belong in there. This has to do with backstory. How much history do you need before you start on the "here and now" in a story? You've got a little too much.

"I's" newfound job as a techie is irrelevant. It is, in fact, disappointing because it set up some expectations that this information would be followed through. I think you could have condensed the first three paragraphs and not missed a single beat. I've read too many webcam stories where people are impoverished and do incestual things on them for money, I suppose, but that's what I expected to happen. Something with Mom doing stuff with the cam for cash and the son finding out about it and joining it. Amazing how predispostion gets in the way. But, it is something writers have to consider when putting in information on characters. What is the connotation of certain words, phrases, or activities?

The other problem that you've got is your use of tag words. I'm a Strunk-ie, but he's got good advice. Don't tag speech if you don't have any other way of making it absolutely clear who state it. "Said" only has one purpose, that's to clarify the speaker. There are adverbial permutations of that, like muttered, yelled, demanded, ordered, stated, hissed, requested, asked, errata. Don't use those either. Don't use them very often either.

Here's an example: "Darrin? Darrin Williams? Is that you?" She exclaimed as she stepped back and looked me up and down.

"Darring? Darrin Williams? Is that you?" She stepped back and looked me up and down.

"Uh, yeah, so I see," I muttered as I averted my eyes and walked over to the computer.

"Uh, yeah, so I see." I averted my eyes and walked over to the computer.

It's clear who is speaking, though the tone used doesn't come through. Now adverbial versions of said are lazy writing. It's the equivalent of saying "He walked slowly." You lose a lot of chances to describe your characters instead of just their tone of voice.

"Uh, yeah, so I see." It was hard to speak. I was too embarrassed to look and too excited not to. I averted my eyes and walked over to the computer.

You may not get the exact sound of the voice across, but that actually doesn't matter. The tone of voice is usually the least of what we notice when in conversation with someone else. We pick apart the body language and use it to interpret words. We think of tone, but that's not as important as what a person is doing with their body, particularly eyes and hands.

:)
 
Ravenswing

I only had two problems with this story. The rest of it was very good. The language and the plot. Now, now, don't kick me here.

The language was a problem only in parts. Particularly in the beginning where not much was happening internally. I can't put my finger on it, unfortunately, but it's difficult to get into in places, particularly in the beginning. Maybe it's the plot itself.

When I looked at this I saw a character driven piece. As such, there's not much plot involved since this sort of thing is all internal to one character. Outside devices only serve one purpose and that's to alter that character's internal sense. The story was written with a plot firmly in mind and it's execution as intrinsic, rather than as the character. I'm having a hard time explaining this because it's just not coming through my brain well at all. You've heard of plot-driven and character-driven, I hope. It seems to me that you wrote a character-driven story in a plot-driven methodology. That seriously shirks the character's bit in all of it and makes it difficult for me to get into because the concerns with plot overwhelm the concerns with character.

Now this isn't a terribly big issue to the reader, I don't think. I doubt most peole would even notice it which leads me to wonder if I'm creating something out of nothing here.

In any event, I don't think you had enough emphasis on the character. It seemed replaced by what was happening around her, what the purpose of it was, and that little twitch at the end where he stuck his thoughts in on the whole deal. It was paranthetical to the story. Kind of like that sentence "The duck, his traditional Christmas dinner, was not inclined to be eaten." If that makes any sense to you.

Hope this helps. :)
 
dvlinblue, your turn, finally

See, I told you I'd get there. :)


And you wrote it in second person. Just a definition for the members of our studio audience:

First Person = I liked watching football with the guys.
Secon Person = You hated the way I threw salsa at George.
Third Person = She always throws stuff at George when his team is winning.

This is a no-no. First, you alienated half of your readership. Men don't have a pussy. Then you alienated a good sized portion of your female audience because most women don't react that way. That happens in any second person story. It's not the way you wrote "you" it's just that "you" only fits a small percentage of the reading audience.

Normally I would have read the first paragraph and been gone. Most readers are like that.

My suggestion would be to use third person. That's the best place to start to hone the writing end of the business because it automatically puts distance between you and your characters. You can keep yourself far enough away from your characters to consciously make them believable. You'll also have an easier time with detail.

Suggestion #2. Don't write one-handed. That means don't do it while you're horny enough to jack off. Your writing suffers. I can tell where you might have gotten excited because you get highly repetitive with phrases and you lose description and move straight into a grocery list of action. I am assuming that paragraph a the bottom of the first page is just a formatting mistake.

Final suggestion. You've got quite a few grammatical errors, particularly run-on, fragments, and comma splicing. Your sentence structure is a little weak as well. When you write, think of yourself as sitting down with a friend at the table and telling the story. Don't think about being an author. That'll help keep some uncomfortable phraseology out. When you're done, read your story out loud and change any sentence you stumble on.

You do seem to have an interesting plot hidden in there, though. A little tweaking with the story would make it come out well.

:)
 
lovechild27

lovechild27 said:
I write for fun, not really for others
Click to expand...

I read all three of your stories. I am not going to comment because I'm not going to waste a lot of time against a ready made excuse. I don't believe that you really do want my opinion or you wouldn't have said this.

However, I will give you two pieces of advice.

1) Make them longer.
2) More description.

If you want more ideas about writing, you can look through past posts on this thread and pick up some ideas on how to fix what you think is wrong.

I can't help you, but there is nothing wrong with writing for fun and then posting for fun. :)
 
Hey Rumple

Well, I really hate to say this, but I didn't like this story. I had a lot of trouble keeping up an interest in it. Disorderly was much better. It took me quite a while to figure out why and that's merely the voice you used. I felt like I was listening to a 15 year old boy describing what he thought would be a really hot sexual encounter for a girl.

But once the panty hose were past her knees, Ray had to stop again. This time it was her shoes which had to be taken off. Impatiently, he fumbled with the tiny straps on each shoe until both were unbuckled, then quickly removed and tossed away.

Things like this were in there. This did nothing for the story. I read the preceding and following paragraphs without it and nothing really changed.

Your characters also "started" and "began" a lot. She began to fall backwards. He started sliding down her body. He began slowly sliding his fingers. That sort of thing. "Started" and "began" imply that the movement is unfinished. He started cleaning the garage. What's your mental image? Same thing here. Unless your character is interrupted, that character should never start or begin, they should just do.

The biggest thing to affect your voice was the fact that the narrator told the whole story. It got a bit irritating after a bit because there were bits and pieces where it was supposed to have come from Cindy, but didn't feel like it. Primarily, "they" was the subject of a lot of sentences. That and the use of name. I know you're anti-personal pronoun, but the fact is that you can't overuse personal pronouns and you can overuse names. In fact you should never use a character's name as the object of a sentence unless you want that character to be distanced from the reader.

Suddenly, Ray began falling forward. Jolted from her reverie, Cindy gasped and closed her eyes. The bed shook when his hands slammed into the bed on either side of her head. When things finally quit bouncing, Cindy opened her eyes. There was Ray, looking down at her with a sly grin.

I wonder if you can see the repetition and how it alters both the POV and the tone of the story.

General concensus is that you use names sparingly. You use personal pronouns in their place. Now, before you argue with me, find a book about it. This is where I got my information.

Repetition is giving you some fits, I think. Here's an example:

By the time she finished unbuttoning the shirt, Ray had shoved his pants down below his knees. When he started taking his shirt off, she reached down with both hands and began almost reverently stroking his stiff dick. This unexpected touch caused his entire body to jerk.

Despite this new distraction, he quickly pulled his shirt off and tossed aside. When he bent down to kiss Cindy, she grabbed his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. To return the compliment, Ray finished removing her dress. Now they were both totally naked.

This story needs a line by line edit to show you what the problem areas are, exactly, so you can fix them. I don't have the time for that kind of work, which is why I'm doing this thread instead of volunteer editoring.

Now, I know I haven't said a single good thing about the story, mostly it was what's wrong. There are a lot of things right with this story. The plot itself is one thing. It's interesting, which is hard to do these days. The characters, despite being cardboard, are also very interesting. I'd like to know more about them and that's the hallmark of a good character. Your story has a solid backbone and strong characters. Putting it all together with the words is where you need a little work.

I would suggest that you do this: Write the story and don't read it for at least a month. Then go back and edit it. After that, then submit it. I can tell that you have the writing skills in there, but first drafts aren't doing you any favors. Waiting gives you enough distance that you can read it as if you'd never seen it before. That way you'll see glaring problems and fix them.

You can still do that with this one. Let it sit for a while, then edit it and resubmit it.
 
Thanks KM, I needed that.

Thanks for the input, KM. It's more than just a tad embarrassing to have made, and then not picked up on, those miscues. Looks like it's back to the old re-write board. RF
 
just as suspected

Hey KM,

Thanks for getting around to it! I had thought that that is what your critcism would be. For some reason I find I just end up writing in that style.
As for the errors...well I am not an english major and I've found the amateur editors to be more or less unavailable to check teh work and give some help.
No fear though...I've begun again and will attempt to tweak it so it reads a little better for the male population...and the females with whom I will not get a chance to seduce!

Cheers!
Dvlinblue
 
NOTICE

I'm going to shut down critiquing on this thread for a while. If you have signed up prior to this post, I will give you a promised feedback. No one who signs up after this post will get feedback.

I've got finals coming up.

:)
 
The Tavern

Hey KM, I posted a while ago... you will see me on page 8 of this thread. I just wanted to give you an updated list of my chapters and for you to choose which ever one your heart desires.

I'm sure that you get swamped with reading these stories... But, it would honour me if you could read mine... Even leave a comment or suggestion, or if you would critique it to death, if possible:

Take your pick...

The Tavern - Chapter 1:
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=38279

The Tavern - Chapter 2:
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=38280

The Tavern - Chapter 3:
http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=45621


Much Appreciated, KillerMuffin;

Lauranathias
 
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Good luck!

KM, Good luck on your finals. Hope you do very well. Thanks for all the time you put in on this thread. Even though I never asked you to review any of mine, I feel like I got a lot of very good advice by reading your other reviews and trying to apply them to my writing.

This thread has been fantastic for the writers here on Lit, so Thanks and good luck on your finals.

Ray
 
:devil:
Edited to say: Guess I should have read all before posting.

Good Luck, as Ray said. Syn
 
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Don't want to beg, but please please please!

I'd adore some claws. Best way to get feedback. Would you mind taking a look? "Wedding Jitters" and "Wildlife" are my earliest work and rather....well, I wouldn't mind if you ignored them. I'm rather fond of "Lady and the Voyeur" and "Night" and "Slave". Your choice, as you're the one doing the clawing. Bless you for volunteering for such strenuous work.
 
SireinMA, if you're still hanging around

Can we say finally? Jeez KM, where tha hell ya been?

Mechanics:

Okay, no matter what the other porn story authors do, it is not acceptable to use ellipses like you are. They are not commas, semi-colons, nor dashes. I'll grudgingly admit that there's a place for them as a fade in speech. Like dashes and sentence fragments, they're best used sparingly. They do not communicate to the reader what you think they do. They are not indicative of tone, feel, lengthy pause, or whatever. They indicate that something was omitted. If you don't already have a grammar/punctuation guide, then you might be able to find something at www.bartleby.com under Reference. If you'd like more in depth commentary, please see my critique of Shhh.

Your sentence structure is a mess. It's the ellipses again. You can't have good grammar the way they use them. I think you're using proper grammar, but I can't tell because you're using the wrong punctuation. Some of the time I think you have a comma splice situation, but you're using ellipses, which are completely wrong. Other times I would call them runon, but they wouldn't be runon if you used a semi-colon.

I would suggest you brush up on the comma. There's a link to comma usage in the first post of this thread: Nonessential components

The gimmicks you used are a pretty bad idea. You see them a lot at Literotica, but they only cover weak writing, not improve things. The big one is chapterization. You can't chapterize a short story like yours. You skipped transitions, which are hard to write but highly important, by simply sticking in a chapter heading. You've got about 7000 words. The average chapter is 10,000 words. It's better to herald a new portion of the story with prose.

We talked about ellipses already. They aren't words and they shouldn't be used as such. Pauses are legitimately descriptive action.

Caps. You used them twice for emphasis. That's a no-no. Use italics. The HTML code that works at lit is: <I>italicized words</I>

Other stuff

The biggest problem was the remoteness of the characters. This was told strictly from the narrator's viewpoint, which isn't always bad. I don't think that it would bother most people in this story since the voice was consistent all the way through. What it did for me was make the characters less interesting than they would have been had you picked one or the other to tell the story with and it made parts of sappy. I wish there were a better way to put it, but I can't think of any.

With that, Phillip smiled... his eyes filling with tears of joy that made Caroline's heart soar. It was a new experience for her... feeling like this just because she could see the pleasure that she had given another. There was a wonderful warmth growing inside her.

The point of view cheapens the emotion for the reader. There isn't as much depth and it isn't as touching because we're getting it second-hand, rather than from the source.

This also brings me to another thing that might be of interest. Voice. Your voice in this was very formal and very stiff. It had that fairy-taleish cant to it. I almost expected a "and they lived happily ever after." Why do I get this stiffness? It's the distance you've put between me, the reader, and the characters.

It's also the poetic turns of phrase that you used. People don't talk that way. People don't think that way. It's not very comfortable read, though it's impressive to look at.

She flooded him with her cum.... and succumbed to the overwhelming darkness that took her senses from her.

It's a very pretty sentence, despite the periods, and it's very off-putting. This is a good example of your prose. Very pretty and very off-putting.

When you make things difficult to wade through you make it more difficult for the reader to sink into the story. I'm too busy looking at the words to be into the story.

Well, I've been carrying on about reader-distance for a while now. I'm going to stop before I confuse everyone as well as I've confused myself.

What's good about the story.

You have realistic characters for the most part. Despite the fact that Phillip talks like someone out of a really bad Byron-era romance novel, he's a pretty believable character. He's also a sympathetic character. That means I liked him. That's very hard to do with a Dom and non-BDSMer like me.

Caroline was more believable. I think she even got to say "don't" instead of "do not." She felt like someone I would actually know instead of like a character out of a book. This is a very good thing because it's equally hard to do.

Your plot was also strong. It was believable. I never once thought that something like that could never happen. Suspension of disbelief is a very real task that a writer always has to overcome. Readers come to fiction with two attitudes, one, that they don't believe what the writer is saying, and two, that they're willing to let the writer convince them. You've succeeded when they suspend their disbelief and merge into the story.

I'm sure you've done it yourself. That book it get so into that you lose track of what's going on around you.

The pacing was pretty good as well. It wasn't too rushed or to slow. A lot of writers rush through the buildup and take too long to get through the part where she takes her clothes off, or they go too slow through the buildup and give you a paragraph of sex. You're very strong in keeping it on an even keel.
 
P.S. I read already what you've said about elipses, so no need to repeat. I got the message.
 
Athos 63! Finally it's your turn!

One of the things I try to do is figure out what you're trying to accomplish with the story. That is, what do you want me, the reader, to get out of it and where you might be planning on taking your writing.

What I think is that you're comfortable where your writing is, at least right now. Your story was more like something you'd find in the locker room back at the ambulance barn. Whether it's true or not, doesn't actually matter. A man relating something that happened to him sexually in some kind of compare conquests thing.

That's the feel of the plot and characters. The writing was a different story. It felt like a description of what you did over summer vacation to make the teacher happy the first week back.

Why? Description. It didn't match the story very well.

"A few cumulus clouds drifted lazily across the cheerful blue sky."
"Shirley lit up like a neon sign."
"the turgid phallus,"

The first one is rather like a child's painting and it's well used. Puffy clouds, blue sky. To change a sentence like this from run of the mill to personal, add modifiers that you wouldn't usually use to describe the sky. Better yet, back off a little bit and concentrate on the important things about summer that guys notice. It's not the sky.

The second one is cliche. It's been done so often that there is no way you can describe "lit up" in narration without being a little boring.

The last one is romance novel cliche. This is Literotica and the submission guidelines are wide open in regards to sex scenes. The rest of your language isn't in the same vernacular that you find "turgid phallus." "Piss slit" -- "turgid phallus," see how they don't work together? Generally, call a spade a spade and a cock a cock. Readers aren't interested in great vocabulary skills. They're interested in great wordsmithing skills.

To heighten the sensation that the reader is getting in on some delicious personal details, bring the narration more into the protagonist's view. Have your guy do most of the thinking, reacting, and talking. As it stands, Dana was pretty distant from the narrative. He was there, it was his POV, but he was pretty aloof.

The one paragraph from her point of view was completely misplaced. That sort of thing would have been better done through dialogue. If you want to change perspectives, that's perfectly fine, just make sure that there is enough time spent in other perspectives to make them seem less out of place.

Suspension of disbelief is something every writer must tackle. Your readers come to a story knowing that you're going to tell them something that is not real. Your job is to make them think that it could possibly be real. You did a pretty good job of it. It was accomplished mostly through the tone of the piece and through the simple fact that no one had corny dialogue and there was no unbelievable endings. The only problem you had was character motivation. I could see her doing just that, but I couldn't really believe that she would do it.
 
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